Iran is a paper tiger debate in London, February 2011

Iran is a paper tiger

24 Feb 2011

This sold-out debate took place at the Royal Geographical Society on the evening of 24th February 2011. Full video is now available above.

You can also listen to full audio of the event on the player below, or explore our Iran micro-site, which is packed full of video, audio, written content, and articles, all free and all about Iran.

Event info:

Listen to what President Ahmedinejad of Iran says about Israel: “The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime.” Here he is on the West: “We thank God that our enemies are idiots.”

Does this man sound like a serious threat? The Islamic regime in Iran loves to bare its claws and snarl, but isn’t this all just am dram posturing? It may suit Israel to portray Iran’s sabre-rattling as an existential threat and it may suit the US to play up that threat. But even if Iran does acquire a nuclear strike capability won’t it be primarily for exhibitionist reasons? And won’t that threat be dwarfed by the far more sophisticated weaponry that Israel and the US could muster in response?

That’s the argument of those happy to dismiss Iran as a paper tiger. But have they got it horribly wrong? Would Arab governments really have beseeched the US to bomb Iran – as revealed by Wikileaks – if its regime were no more than a duff joke? Could it be that a nuclear-armed Iran is every bit as bad as the scaremongers say it is?

First vote: 193, 262, Don't know 228

Final vote: 398 For, 275 Against, 25 Don't know

The motion is carried by 123 votes.

Speakers for the motion

Ali Ansari

Professor of Iranian History and Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews
Roger Cohen

Columnist for The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune
Karim Sadjadpour

Associate at the Carnegie Endowment and former chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group

Chair

Richard Lindley

Journalist and former Panorama reporter

Speakers against the motion

Nazenin Ansari

Diplomatic editor of Kayhan, a weekly Persian-language newspaper published in London.
Reuel Marc Gerecht

Senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former specialist at the CIA's Directorate of Operations
Geoffrey Robertson QC

Leading human rights lawyer and author of a recent report on crimes against humanity in Iran